Demand for no-fly zone at Sellafield

A NO-FLY zone must be put in place over Sellafield to protect the nuclear plant against terrorism, an Irish senator said yesterday.

"Sellafield is already a threat to the health and safety of Irish people on this side of the water. Now we have the added threat of terrorist attacks," said Senator Fergus O'Dowd.

He called on Bertie Ahern, the Irish prime minister, to insist that the area be prohibited to aircraft. Mr O'Dowd, of the main opposition party Fine Gael, is based in Co Louth where the incidence of cancer and birth defects is blamed on the Cumbrian installation.

Mr O'Dowd called on the British Government to explain its new safety measures. British Nuclear Fuels has said safety and security procedures at the plant were under review.

His comments followed an interview in New Scientist magazine in which Gordon Thompson, executive director of the Institute for Resource and Security Studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, discusses what could happen if an airliner were flown into the site.

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"As much as half of the 2,400 kilograms of caesium-137 in the tanks . . . could escape into the air. That would be 44 times more caesium-137 than was released by the Chernobyl disaster," the article said.

"Four million terabecquerels of radioactivity would contaminate large parts of Britain and, depending on which way the wind was blowing, Ireland, continental Europe and beyond."

"It is almost too frightening to contemplate." BNFL described the article as "grossly irresponsible" scaremongering which "borders on science fiction".

The company said the tanks referred to were among "the most robust buildings" on the Sellafield site and surrounded by a "huge biological shield" made of solid concrete a metre and a half thick.

A spokesman said the company could not discuss matters relating to security at the site.